Page 141 of Edge of the Wild

But Erik wasmuchstronger.

He heard the crunch of approaching footsteps, and turned, his captor-turned-hostage held before him as a shield. The man let out a strangled, airless sound as a spear meant for Erik pierced his stomach instead.

Erik felt the judder of impact; felt the last bit of breath go out of the other man. Not dead yet, but he would be soon, and he wouldn’t be doing any fighting in the interim.

The one who’d stabbed his comrade gaped.

The fourth guard let out a war cry, and charged – as did the five masked warriors with clubs behind Erik.

The man running toward him, spear held at the ready, sharp teeth bared, tripped and fell flat on his face.

What?

Behind him, the war cries turned to shouts of alarm, and he heard the muffled thump of bodies landing in the snow.

Erik unhooked his arms from around the dying man and let him fall. At his feet, the snow humped, and lifted, and boiled up, as if something were burrowing up from underground. Something thrust through, suddenly, breaking the surface.

It was a hand.

A human hand. One with mottled, blue-white flesh, and two naked, skeletal fingers. The gleam of bone showed at the wrist, and in patches up the arm, as it kept coming, and coming.

It was adeadhand.

Náli.

Another hand and arm joined the first, gripped at the snow, and a torso hauled itself free. Months-dead, but mobile, and armed with a sword, a soldier clambered shakily to its feet, and turned its face, briefly, toward Erik. The nose was black with frostbite, and the eyes were long-since gone.

Then it turned, and hacked at the fourth guard, the one now crawling backward and screaming in terror.

Erik snatched up one of the dropped spears and joined the fray.

~*~

“Oh,” Oliver said, as he watched the snow shift, and a bruised, blue, half-rotted body crawled up out of the ground. Tatters of velvet clung to its shoulders. Bone and sinew showed through skin that resembled moth-eaten lace.

“He’s dead,” Oliver said, needlessly. “That’s a dead man.”

Leif said, “He is the Corpse Lord, after all.”

In answer, three more dead men burst forth and clambered out of the snow. There were ten up and fighting already, engaging the enemy, strong enough to swing old swords and cleave skulls, dead or not, and their number was growing by the second as more and more crawled up to join their fellows.

Náli still knelt in the snow, but had begun to sway slightly, back and forth; he murmured something low and frenzied beneath his breath, too quiet to make out, and the dead kept coming. He wasdrawingthem, flooding their lifeless bones with his old family magic and calling them to their aid.

Oliver wished he was sober so he could properly appreciate it, but, then again, he might have been screaming in terror instead.

Much the way the enemy was.

The warriors with the clubs and the four guards with the spears had all been cut down; had all died shocked, and screaming, and fleeing. Erik stood alone now, a spear in one hand and a club in the other; his manacles had been cut, somehow – a few of the dead men wielded steel swords, he saw.

Even high as he was, Oliver didn’t think he would ever forget the portrait Erik made in that moment. Standing with feet braced and ready, head swiveling as he scanned the wall full of screaming spectators, hair fanning, breath steaming in the chill air. His expression was fierce, ready, resigned all at once, and he’d never looked so strong and capable – here in the moments before their demise.

Because Náli fell over.

The corpses swayed and crumpled.

And angry Fangs poured down off the walls.

“Shit,” Leif said. “Shit, shit, shit. Náli? Náli!”

---